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August 11 - October 9, 2017
Manichaeism seemed to address Augustine’s difficulties with Christianity,
from the point of view of rhetoric, the Bible was a series of inelegant writings
the question of the origin of evil.
he did this in the hope that Neoplatonism would open the way for Augustine to return to his mother’s faith—a hope that eventually proved to be well-founded.
Evil then does not originate from a different source, but consists simply in moving away from the One.
Evil, though real, is not a “thing,” but rather a direction away from the goodness of the One.
as time went by he found that he was listening to the bishop less as a professional, and more as a seeker.
it certainly made scripture appear less crude, and therefore more acceptable.
Were he to accept his mother’s faith, he would do it wholeheartedly, and he would devote his entire life to it.
Augustine was convinced that, were he to become a Christian, he must give up his career in rhetoric, as well as all his ambitions and every physical pleasure.
He could no longer hide behind intellectual difficulties.
After his conversion, Augustine took the necessary steps to embark on a new life.
Their objective was not the extreme rigorism of the monks of the desert, but rather an orderly life, with no unnecessary comforts, and devoted entirely to prayer, study, and meditation.
now his energies had to be directed less toward contemplation, and more toward his pastoral responsibilities.
Augustine became the champion of the freedom of the will.
A decision is free inasmuch as it is not the product of nature, but of the will itself.
It is good for the will to be free, even though this means that such a free will can produce evil.
Augustine was able to affirm both the reality of evil and the creation of all things by a good God.
It is a decision, a direction, a negation of good.
Augustine responded that the validity of any rite of the church does not depend on the moral virtue of the person administering it.
No matter how unworthy the celebrant, the rite is still valid, although obviously the celebrant is at fault.
a war may be just, but that in order for it to be so certain conditions must be fulfilled.
just—a war is never just when its purpose is to satisfy territorial ambition, or the mere exercise of power.
a just war must be waged by properly instit...
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even in the midst of the violence that is a necessary part of war, the motive of love must be central.
He saw the Christian life as a constant effort through which one’s sins could be overcome and salvation attained.
According to Augustine, the power of sin is such that it takes hold of our will, and as long as we are under its sway we cannot move our will to be rid of it.
The sinner is still free to choose among various alternatives. But all of these are sin, and the one alternative that is not open is to cease sinning.
At that point, our minds will be so overwhelmed by the goodness of God that sin will be as unimaginable as not sinning is now.
grace is irresistible, and God gives it to those who have been predestined to it.
The city of God is built on the love of God. The earthly city is built on the love of self. In human history, these two cities always appear mingled with each other.
Augustine was the last of the great leaders of the Imperial church in the West. When he died, the Vandals were at the gates of Hippo, announcing a new age. Therefore, Augustine’s work was, in a way, the last glimmer of a dying age.
Throughout the Middle Ages, no theologian was quoted more often than he was, and he thus became one of the great doctors of the Roman Catholic Church.
Augustine, variously interpreted, has become the most influential theologian in the entire Western church, both Protestant and Catholic.
while Christianity was developing within the Roman Empire it was also taking root in lands beyond the reach of Roman rule.
there are Christians in the twenty-first century who trace their origins to those early churches beyond the Eastern borders of the empire.
This practice, which paralleled the rise of Christianity, provided early Aramaic-speaking Christians with ready-made versions of at least part of the Hebrew scripture,
From a very early date, Christianity spread eastward following the lines of Syriac trade and culture.
long before the conversion of Constantine the kings of Edessa, and most of their subjects, were Christian.
After Edessa, the next state to embrace Christianity was Armenia.
from Armenia Christianity expanded into the kingdom of Georgia,
Ethiopian Christianity originated in Egypt, and has always had strong connections with the church in that land.
they became Monophysite, maintaining that Christ had only one nature, and to this day remain the largest of the so-called Monophysite churches.
Christianity had also crossed the border into Mesopotamia and Persia at a very early date, probably taken there by Syriac-speaking merchants and other travelers.
most Persian Christians rejected the decisions regarding the two natures of Christ of made by one or the other of these two councils, thus asserting their independence from Rome and gaining a measure of tolerance.
this was the confused and confusing picture of Christianity that Muhammad came to know and to reject.
there are documents that clearly show that Christianity was firmly implanted in India by the beginning of the fifth century.
its monasteries were among the main sources from which the territories of the ancient Roman Empire regained much of the classical knowledge and literature that had been lost during the invasions.
His great contribution to Gothic Christianity was in developing an alphabet for the language of the Goths, and then translating the Bible into it.
by the time of the great invasions, many of the invaders were Christians, although of the Arian persuasion.
